Traveling Back

Going back to the homestead always
brings precious thoughts unfolding,
like a well-crafted scarf used only seasonally.

If I try hard,
I can just about smell the sweetgrass,
floating on the gentle breeze, as we whisk
past acre after acre of ranchland.

When we refueled in the rural metropolis
of Dakota City, leaving the grand
Mississippi with her steep banks awash
in summertime flora, viewed in our rearview mirror,
I knew we were just few hours away
From Gram and Pops homestead.

It wasn't long when I start looking
ahead on the flat as a pancake-roadway
for that little diesel - pump gas station
where Grand-pop used to take me to on
the John Deere after he tilled his land until the sun
was nearly halfway down in the western sky.

We would grab an ice-cold cola and sit alongside
the sheriff's police cruiser, parked off to the side of the little station.
Pops' would start spinning a long tale about when the sheriff
was a young-man like me.

Then just like the setting sun ... the memories just fade into the sunset of time.